Leading domain investor Shane Cultra requested that I do a redesign to improve the usability of an email newsletter he’d just received from his friends at Media Options, the #1 domain broker in the world. In a few hours, I completed and shared a Figma with Shane containing an analysis of the current issues, as well as a design that addressed those issues. A few days later, the Media Options team had updated their email newsletter template with the new design and sent out their latest email. I received thanks and acknowledgement that was tweeted out by the COO and Media Options’ official Twitter/X accounts.
Problems
The visual grouping and colors were “brutal on the eyes”
The list of domains used repetitive text that made the list difficult to scan quickly.
Additional content such as blog posts and podcasts had repetitive descriptions and proportionally little to call out what was new and why users should click through for more.
SolutionS
I made the following changes to make the newsletter content easier to scan, quicker to read and drive more action.
Domain Deals list: Removed repetitive text, divided the list into two sections: domains with prices and without, and sorted both sections alphabetically to speed scanning. Added CTA buttons which served both to drive contacts as well as visual separators between sections. Also moved call to action content from the very bottom of the email to immediately after the Domain Deals list.
Blog and podcast sections: Reduced the long descriptions to single paragraphs that called out what was new or unique about the content, which was helpful for distinguishing between the episodes of a series.
Visual design: Reduced visual noise, introduced separators (using brand orange) to make it easier to visually scan from section to section, while also help one find one’s place in a very long email, esp. on mobile. Provided both light and dark mode designs.
Typography: Introduced consistent heading, subheading and body sizes to clarify visual hierarchy.